'Marvel's Runaways': Meet the Deans

Watch the first three episodes of 'Marvel's Runaways' on Hulu now!

Runaways, the celebrated series by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, is making its debut today with the premiere of the first three episodes of “Marvel’s Runaways,” airing exclusively on Hulu!

Marvel.com spoke with the Dean family—Virginia Gardner, who plays Karolina Dean, and parents Annie Wersching, who plays Leslie Dean, and Kip Pardue, who plays Frank Dean. We talked to them about what it’s like for the Deans to have a strong matriarch and how to find a common bond when the world they know starts to fall apart.

Leslie Dean role is the leader of the Church of Gibborim, a job that takes up much of her life and much of her emotional bandwidth. This is a way of life the Deans have become used to but soon becomes a complicated issue for their daughter. Wersching explained, “For Karolina, she’s grown up in this church background where her mother is the head of this church and she just always believes that her mom is doing the ultimate good, fighting for good, saving these runaway kids—that her mom is just this amazing woman. And it’s a huge shock, that she doesn’t want to believe when she sees her mom is a part of the Pride, this horrible organization.”

Leslie Dean (Annie Wersching)

“Leslie’s the only one who really knows what the Pride is for and all about,” Wersching revealing her character’s strong will and role in the Pride. “She’s happy to let other people believe and think that they are the leaders when she is actually the leader of Pride. She’s very good at manipulation—steering people in the right direction, getting people to do things that she needs them to do—she’s very good at sort of guiding people. And I think that’s a good quality about her, in a lot of ways, and also can be kind of intense in other ways.”

It’s no easy feat running both the Church of Gibborim and the Pride. Wersching revealed, “Having to run the Church, or getting to run the Church, it definitely puts a little bit of a strain on the time she has for Karolina and demands she has for Karolina. She wants Karolina to be the perfect face for the youth of the Church. The smile, the hair, all of it. Leslie probably thinks, at the beginning, that her relationship is pretty darn good with Karolina, and has no real understanding of what’s actually going on with her inside. And obviously, that lends itself to give Frank and Karolina a lot more time.”

Karolina Dean (Virginia Gardner) and Frank Dean (Kip Pardue)

Pardue expanded on the couple’s issues, “Frank’s relationship with Leslie is, again, like almost every relationships in the show, on shaky ground. For the most part, she’s in charge. She’s this incredibly powerful, obviously beautiful, intelligent woman. And in so many ways, Frank needs Leslie.”

Seeing how much his family is involved in the Church, Pardue feels Frank wants very much to be a part of it, “He wants to get closer and closer. And oftentimes in life, when we start to get closer to something, you learn more about it and maybe it’s different than what we thought it was. As things go on, and Frank starts to learn more, more about Leslie’s double life, or triple life, or quadruple life on some level, it separates him more from her, and brings him closer to his daughter.”

“Karolina finds solace in her dad because he’s not in the Pride and he’s the only parent that isn’t in the Pride. He feels like an outcast from that group, and Karolina feels like an outcast at school sometimes, especially when you first meet her,” Gardner noting the Deans’ father-daughter bond strengthened based on mutual understanding. “She does have a special relationship with her dad for that reason. And the more she finds out about the Pride and what they’re actually up to, the more she takes comfort in knowing that her dad is not a part of that, and can believe that her dad is really a great guy that’s trying to help them.”

‘Marvel’s Runaways’

Gardner believes the Runaways’ journey relates to a lot of teenagers’ realities. “Teenagers are very vulnerable, and it’s great when they find a skill, a hobby or something that helps them regain their strength. This show is a different version of that; it’s a Marvel superhero version of that. It’s cool to play these characters that are so conflicted, and then they find out that they have this amazing strength about them, which I think a lot of kids can find within themselves in different ways too.”

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Runaways: On the Move

Published Nov 3, 2017
By Josh Weiss

Writer Rainbow Rowell details Karolina's headspace in the new series.

We’re coming up to the three-issue mark of Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park, Carry On) and Kris Anka’s (ALL-NEW X-MEN, CAPTAIN MARVEL) RUNAWAYS series and things are only becoming more trying for our favorite band of young heroes. They’re not the tight-knit family they once were with some of them (cough Karolina cough) just wanting to live normal lives away from all that world-saving stuff. They’re the same characters, but definitely not the same people. What does that mean exactly? Marvel.com caught up with super Runaways fan and writer Rainbow Rowell to discuss the answer to that very question and much, much more.

Marvel.com: So we’re nearly three issues into your debut Marvel series. What’s it been like so far?

Rainbow Rowell: EXCITING. I’ve been working on RUNAWAYS for almost a year now and it‘s been such a long wait to actually share this story. All those months knowing the kids were coming back and not being able to tell anyone… It feels so good to finally be able to talk to other RUNAWAYS fans! That’s one weird thing – being a fan and also the writer. Like, obviously, as a fan, I wanted Gert back. But, as the writer, it was my responsibility to bring her back in a way that felt right and real.

Marvel.com: In Issue #3 itself, we find a Karolina Dean who is complacent with just being a college student. What’s her journey been like since discovering her extraterrestrial origins to now?

Rainbow Rowell: Well, I wouldn’t call her complacent! I think she’s the only Runaway with any direction at the beginning of this arc. She’s in school, she’s in therapy, and she’s in a healthy relationship. Karolina has always been so generous, so willing to sacrifice herself. But her good intentions have backfired on her. She rushed into an arranged marriage to save her home planet –and then her wedding led to her planet’s destruction. That’s a lot of guilt and shame to carry. Someone else might bury those feelings and let them fester. But Karolina wants to process them. She wants to be a good person – a functioning person.

Marvel.com: What kind of arguments can we expect the other Runaways to make to convince her to join them?

Rainbow Rowell: I mean the biggest argument is just, “We’re a family.” Gert especially doesn’t understand how Karolina – or any of the other kids – could walk away from the Runaways.

Marvel.com: Can you describe the thing keeping the Runaways together at this point and the headspace they’re at when one of them just wants to live a normal life without responsibilities?

Rainbow Rowell: Well, I think Karolina is in many ways the most responsible. Gert wants something that doesn’t exist anymore; she wants her gang back. She wants it to be us-against-the-world again. And Chase wants whatever Gert wants. He wants a do-over where she never died at all. Until Issue #3, Nico’s motivation is less clear. She seems unwilling to burst Gert’s bubble. I think Karolina comes in as the voice of reason: Things have changed, we’ve grown up, we can’t go backward.

Marvel.com: I gotta ask: What the heck is Chase keeping in his backpack and what are the Avengers gonna do about it?

Rainbow Rowell: What does Chase have in his backpack? My heart. This is a MAJOR SPOILER for anyone who hasn’t read Issue #2….At the end of that issue, the gang realized that the Avengers had sent Chase a box with Victor Mancha’s head inside. (Victor was killed in the VISION series by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta, which you should read right now if you haven’t already. Victor is one of my favorite Marvel characters. He’s smart and kind and humble. He has this wonderful dry sense of humor. I was so hyped for him to be in this book that I went to the comic shop as soon it opened that Wednesday morning, just to see Victor’s face in print. And of course, in Kris Anka’s hands – with color by Matt Wilson – Victor looks breathtaking. Not just handsome – but real. I’m in awe of how good all these characters look. Somehow Kris makes them look exactly like themselves and also better than ever.

Check out Runaways #3 from Rainbow Rowell and Kris Anka on November 8! And don’t miss “Marvel’s Runaways” debutting on Hulu this November 21!